UN-American

WASHINGTON -- Millions of American boys have dreamed of hitting a grand slam or pitching a no-hitter at Yankee Stadium because baseball's greatest have performed there. Talented musicians and singers aspire to New York's famed Carnegie Hall, for they know it represents the pinnacle of their profession. For gifted physicians and medical researchers, the Mount Everest of medicine is the Mayo Clinic.

But certain institutions can bring out the worst in people. For the professional peddlers of anti-Americanism, haters of free enterprise, and true believers in global government, there is only one place that it really pays to perform: the United Nations.

The U.N. headquarters, in Manhattan, has become the venue of choice for "diplomats" and foreign leaders to condemn America, our values and our virtues. Since the 1960s, star billing has been promised to any dictator or despot who takes to this "world stage" for the purpose of denigrating the United States and our bounty, wealth and power. When they show up for the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, it is guaranteed that their horrible harangues will be broadcast around the planet.

Soviet tyrant Nikita Khrushchev was one of the first to grasp this opportunity, and he did so repeatedly. Since then, totalitarians Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, Robert Mugabe, Daniel Ortega, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Idi Amin and Hugo Chavez have used the U.N.'s bully pulpit to denounce the United States. Next week's gathering of the U.N. General Assembly promises more of the same.

Just to make sure that no one has any doubts as to how things are going to go in the days ahead, the members of the General Assembly selected Miguel d'Escoto -- a prominent America hater -- as their president. When the 63rd UNGA convenes Tuesday, d'Escoto will "moderate" this year's assaults on the United States.

For those too young to remember the portly d'Escoto, he was one of the original founders of the communist-inspired Sandinista movement, which seized control of Nicaragua in 1979. His U.N.-published biography proudly proclaims that he "spearheaded the Nicaraguan Government's decision, in 1984, to bring to the International Court of Justice a claim against the United States for supporting military and paramilitary actions against the country, with the Court subsequently ruling in favor of Nicaragua."

Notably, the bio makes no mention of d'Escoto, a Maryknoll priest, being publicly reprimanded by Pope John Paul II during the pope's 1983 visit to Managua. Nor does d'Escoto's resume reflect his tenure as a paid asset of the Central Intelligence Agency in Chile. Apparently, the U.S. haters at the U.N. just missed those facts.

Oliver North is a nationally syndicated columnist, the host of War Stories on the Fox News Channel, the author of the new novel Heroes Proved and the co-founder of Freedom Alliance, an organization that provides college scholarships to the children of U.S. military personnel killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty. Join Oliver North in Israel by going to www.olivernorthisrael.com.